Contents

Overview

Safeguard Missions (sometimes simply called Safeguards) are missions that heroes may undertake in which there is a primary mission of preventing a bank robbery and numerous secondary missions assigned that grant additional time and various bonuses. Secondary missions include preventing vandals from destroying objects within the zone, and side missions unlocked by defeating certain enemies. In addition, each Safeguard mission map contains an exploration badge marker. Each Safeguard mission awards a specific temporary power for completing it successfully.

Safeguard Missions are obtained from detectives and are available after completing several Police Radio missions. Check the progress bar for the detective in the zone. If it is full red, characters can talk to the Detective to get the Safeguard mission. If not, then do more radio missions in the zone.

After completing or failing a Safeguard mission, characters can complete more radio missions in order to re-obtain it (provided one doesn't exceed the maximum level before re-completing the number of prerequisite Police Radio mission). Note that a character may obtain the temporary power for successful completion of each individual Safeguard mission only once, regardless of how many times the Safeguard is successfully completed. Additionally, in order to obtain the Safeguard's associated reward, the character must be Security Level equal to or higher than the minimum for that Safeguard. Even advancing to the appropriate level while within the mission followed by successfully completing the mission will not award the power; the character must be trained to the minimum level of the Safeguard mission.

Note that at levels divisible by 5 (10, 15, 20, etc.) it is possible to get either of two different missions for the ranges ending at or starting at the current level. Which of the two is offered will be random if a character is visiting a detective in a zone that can offer both safeguard missions.

Conventional wisdom was that at levels 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 and 45 it was not possible to choose which safeguard mission obtained; however, this is only absolutely true at levels 35 and 45 due to being able to choose in which zone to obtain a safeguard. It is partially true at level 10 where it is possible to ensure the Kings Row safeguard, but the Atlas Park safeguard requires luck; at level 25 the Steel Canyon safeguard can be ensured but the Independence Port safeguard relies on luck (or wait a level). Obviously if the lower of the two is desired, then experience should be turned off to keep from out-leveling it.

Safeguard Missions by Zone

The following table shows the possibilities for controlling which safeguard is obtained at the "overlap" levels, 10, 15, 20 etc. Zones can guarantee a certain safeguard mission by being at the extreme beginning or end of the level range.

Secondary Missions

The following are secondary missions that may be completed within a Safeguard Mission:

Mission

Bonus Time

Description

Time Limit

Prevent Arson

4:00

Prevent a building from being set on fire.

3:00

Prevent Bombing

8:00

Work through the sewers into an office building to prevent it from being bombed.

6:00

Prevent Jailbreak

8:00

Prevent a villain from being broken out of jail.

???

Prevent Vault Break-In

5:00

Prevent villains from breaking into a local business.

???

Prevent Weapons Arms Deal

6:00

Raid a villain base where an arms deal is in progress, possibly acquiring the weapon for yourself.

???

It is random which secondary missions are spawned for each Safeguard Mission. Low level Safeguard Missions generally only have one or two active secondary missions, while higher level Safeguard Missions have more.

Secondary missions are unlocked by defeating groups of enemies in the missions. These will be of a different enemy group from the primary group patrolling the streets of the mission. Defeating the entire group of one of these enemies will give a key that unlocks the secondary mission.

Additional Time

Additional time beyond that granted from completion of side missions can be earned by defeating the various packs of vandals that periodically appear in the area. When vandals appear, the warning "Vandals are causing mayhem" will pop up and a location on the mission map will be displayed. If the hero travels to this location and eliminates the pack of vandals, which can contain as few as one enemy, they will gain 1:30. Vandals are of the same villain group as the secondary mission enemies which hold keys.

Temp powers

Temporary Powers can be obtained during or upon completion of Safeguard Missions. Refer to the table above for Temporary Powers associated associated with the completion of a Safeguard Mission. Also, there are temporary powers awarded from the "Arms Deal" side mission. These powers are awarded to the person who clicks the objective in the side mission (not necessarily the owner of the mission), and are random which power is awarded. There are a wide variety of different powers available.

Farming

It is actually possible to reset the mission, and thus farm a Safeguard mission for badge credits. But some very specific things must be done to make it happen.

Safeguards start with a bank robbery that will start automatically even if the bank is left alone. But it is possible to stop the robbery, in progress, without defeating all villains in the bank. The key is the group of villains milling about the bank lobby. They are part of the bank robbery spawn, and must be defeated to complete the mission. But as long as they are not agroed, and the bank vault is not breached, they will never move from their initial spawn point. So the key to making this work is to quickly slip past the group in the lobby and get to the group at the vault. This group should now be defeated before they can breach the vault and activate the villains in the lobby.

One major hazard in this is that it is very easy to knock enemies back through the vault door. If this happens, barring the presence of TP Foe, there is no way to get at the enemy now beyond the vault, who will proceed to resume working on destroying the vault door. At this point all players should log out for several minutes to force a hard reset of the mission as soon as possible.

If the vault group is successfully defeated, the robbery is halted uncompleted, and the mission will never succeed or fail. Even better, the timer never starts, and the cycle of vandals never start. But the side missions can now be activated and completed, and when all desired side missions are done, the mission can be reset and the process can be repeated.

Safeguards suffer from a similar quirk that affects resetting Mayhem Missions. If the mission owner enters the map, completed side missions will not reset when the mission is reset. If the mission owner does not enter the map, then the side missions will reset with the mission resets.